In late September 1938 – in the aftermath of the Anschluss and the German invasion of Austria, and in the fool's-gold glow of the Munich conference – The Times published a delightfully pompous editorial:

Less than two years later, with W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood discovering a brave new American way of life, an epigram was printed in the Spectator (its author rumoured to be the Dean of St Paul's):

This short journey from the public's conscience to its whipping boy of course reflects the change in Britain's and Auden's domestic circumstances; yet it also delineates a public conception of the poet's role in society. This was a relatively new phenomenon – one shaped on the Somme and at Ypres but ultimately refined in the politically turbulent 1930s. Moreover, this public delineation of role came from both sides of the political debate: The Times was the Establishment newspaper, while the Spectator – not yet the right-wing zoo it would delight in being fifty years later – published many young and left-wing intellectuals of the day.